Turning
by dinosaurish
Summary: After discovering the Shredder truly was lying to her, Karai has to make a choice.


For many weeks, Karai considers herself homeless, even when she is still too weak to leave the cot Yoshi has provided her. She has enough money that she could, if she so desired, rent an apartment, but spending her father's money does not sit well with her.

"You are always welcome, here," Yoshi tells her, his ears flat against his skull. His sons do not exactly mimic his sentiment, but they keep quiet, skirting around her as they all heal.

Her bitterness and anger welled over that violent night; she is left, now, to deal with the remains. It's as if a tsunami has passed through her, taking with it so many precious things, leaving behind only wreckage. Karai has nothing left to her but the pity of monsters and a black, impotent anger.

She can't kill her father. She can't live in the sewers, with the rat and his framed picture of her mother and a stranger, with the turtles who would rather see her dead. She can only wait, and try to piece herself back together.

It takes her five days to heal well enough to leave the lair, and the moment she has, she does. The city rushes on without her, unfamiliar once again, like it was when they first came over from Tokyo. She has enough cash on her to take the subways, so she does, one hand on a knife at all times, glaring at passengers who seem likely to pick a fight. No one does.

She doesn't eat, much – a pretzel here, some soup, a cheeseburger. She spends two and a half days out, not sleeping, fueled by some tangible sickness that she cannot name.

At the end of it, she returns to the lair, hungry and exhausted and terrified of trusting Yoshi's words. _You are always welcome, here,_ he said, a pretty sentiment that must have a price. Everyone has a price. Karai is skilled at guessing what it is, by now, but that doesn't help her here. The turtles might be transparent to her, but Yoshi has always been a frightful apparition, the beast who shaped her life. Living with him does not render him any more transparent.

But it is not Yoshi she finds, nor his sons. It is April O'Neil.

Neither of them hesitate before drawing their weapons – and then the last week and a half catches up to them. Karai falters, lowering her tantō. April does not reciprocate. There is nothing soft about her, though Karai knows that there can be.

"What are you doing back here?" April asks through gritted teeth.

Karai sheathes her tantō and rests a hand on her hip, too tired to do anything but fall back to her default sneer. "Haven't you heard? I'm family, now."

x

April is a constant. In some ways, she feels more pervasive than the boys, because they still avoid her and she them, but April doesn't bother: She's watching Karai. Many times, Karai catches snippets of conversation where April hisses out lists of every crime Karai has committed against the family. _Have you already forgotten she tried to kill us? Multiple times?_

Karai does nothing to correct her. After all, she has no intention of playing pet to a bunch of freaks and their golden girl. She spends less time in the lair, only staying long enough to train and sleep. If she eats, she does not eat with the others. She is hyper-aware of her position, the helplessness of it, and she bristles at it. Soon, she tells herself, she will step back into the role she knows, will conquer this city, will live without needing to rely on anyone.

x

As the days pass, the turtles become more comfortable with her, though Raphael and Donatello keep their distance. Michelangelo invites her to supper, one day, when he manages to catch her on her way out, and seems genuinely disappointed when she declines. The offer is baffling, but she tries to let it roll off her back. It doesn't matter. None of this matters – this might as well be a halfway house.

But she spends the rest of the day thinking about it, about everything. About how much she owes her father—her training, her clan, the clothes on her back, her very life—but so too does she owe him a bitter hatred of the man who killed her mother. Of the man who took her rightful life from her.

She's not sure that she is ready to pass that hatred onto her father, no matter how much he deserves it.

She's not sure of much of anything, anymore.

x

It's April who settles her resolve, on an early morning—just past six, nothing but a rat stirring in the whole lair, and his pupil. Karai is drinking from the sink when April steps into the kitchen, and they both tense. Karai straightens and wipes the water from her mouth.

"Listen," April says, and brushes her bangs to the side. "Karai. I want to talk to you."

"Who said I want to talk to you?"

April is not fazed by that in the slightest, shifting her weight to one leg and regarding Karai. "I know the last couple of weeks have been rough for you," she says. "I just wanted to—"

"Spare me," she spits. "You have no idea what I've been through."

"No, but I do know what it's like to lose everything." She pauses; when Karai doesn't respond (her heart caught in her throat), she takes a deep breath and gestures to the fridge. "Look, just—do you want some pancakes? We don't have to talk about—whatever. Consider it my peace offering."

Karai swallows, swallows again, and only then can speak. "I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

April smiles and shakes her head. "At this point? That's all you have."

x

She leaves, again, after breakfast, before Leo or the others wake. She travels across the cool rooftops toward the sun, running like her life depends on it, running until she is too exhausted to run anymore—and then, before she can think twice, she turns back again.


End file.
